I'm a huge fan of the original Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and had very high expectations for the return to Middle-Earth with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. As I mentioned in my reviews for The Lord Of The Rings, I never read the books and only know what I know from the 3 films. This also applies to book for The Hobbit as well. Now I knew that the original intent here was to do 2 films before it was decided to turn this into a Prequel Trilogy. Immediately red flags went up for me that this wasn't the wisest move to make. Even I didn't have to know anything about the books to know that trying to squeeze out a 3rd film would come at the expense of the other two films and that leads me into my thoughts of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

I don't know what parts of the film in Journey are taken directly from the source material and what was written specifically for the movie to pad out the scenes to make longer. Ah. Longer. Therein lies what is at fault with a good chunk of Journey and I think the way they opened this movie did do itself a huge disservice. The whole 'setup' that takes place in Bilbo Baggins home when the other Dwarves show up to eat was just way too damn long and more or less crippled the movie. I think it was something like 30-40 minutes long. Not good.

It's not that this movie is bad. It looks and sound amazing and feels right at home with the Original Trilogy. But the pacing for me is way off in more ways than one and it's not just the beginning either. The entire movie for me just reeked of one giant set up for what's to come with no satisfying pay-offs. The 'Set Pieces' here really weren't epic or even close to being in the same breath of what we got in the Original Trilogy.

I may eventually grow to like this one more than I do right now by way of repeated viewings, much in the same way I did with Fellowship Of The Ring. But my first impressions with Journey is kind of a "disappointment". I still think the movie is worth a Rent for fans and non-fans of the series. I think that this will actually play better to people that aren't fans because they won't have high expectations for this one like I did. Anyway, give it a Rent for sure.

my fear and I did like this quite a bit and will watch it again immediately...is that I am not sure the replay value will be like the first 3 movies....there's no war and as silly as that sounds...the "war" makes the first 3 very epic.

I really enjoyed this though....I think reading people who said the movie was a 1 star film made me think...wow what happened....seeing it...it was a perfect fit into Peter Jackson's films...although maybe some of the action was a little "convenient at times...with fight scenes and set pieces falling very easily into place....I thought the movie was bad ass and I was super impressed with all aspects of it.